Smiling Through the Rain
by purpletea
Summary: *after Ink Exchange* Leslie has settled into her new life and Niall is getting comfortable with ruling the Dark Court. Niall chooses Danny OC as one of his advisors, a strange move. How will Danny's love for a mortal girl affect the court? OCxOC


Her smile was strained as she waved goodbye to Ben and headed up the street. She'd been holding back the tears all evening, but now they were threatening to spill over. Ben had been sweet as always. He was never the one who made her cry. _If only . . . _ She shook her head violently, cutting the thought short. There were far too many 'if only' scenarios running through her head, like usual. She tried to remind herself that dreams like that were pointless, but they always came back eventually.

Jamie's boots sloshed through puddles that had formed on the sidewalk, taking her nowhere in particular. She scanned the street ahead with her ever-wary eyes, but all was clear. Only a few faeries lingered outside a bar. They didn't worry her. She was just an insignificant human after all. She still kept her head down as she passed by them, never once looking up from the cracked street beneath her. She felt their eyes on her for a moment, but it was barely a second.

She didn't fear faeries—never had—no matter what gruesome stories her aunt told her. _If only Auntie was still alive._ The thought slipped out from behind the wall she built so carefully around her painful memories. There were far too many others to accompany it, and she knew that if she let them out she would be engulfed. _If only mom wasn't always drunk._ She couldn't take it, not now, not here.

She took off, running faster and harder than she ever had. She didn't know where she was going, or why, but she had to keep running so that the bad thoughts wouldn't catch her. The clouds that had been threatening rain all afternoon broke open then, drenching her instantly. She didn't care. If she was soaked no one would notice the tears.

The blonde girl ran through the streets, not getting tired even when she'd been running for a solid half hour. She was used to running; she did it a lot. Whenever she wanted to get away from the pain, or anything else, she ran. It helped, most days. She was still running at full speed when she rounded a corner and smashed full on into someone standing there. She stumbled back from the man and fell on her butt in a puddle, shaken up from the impact.

"Sorry," she mumbled. Normally she would've been more sincere in her apologies, but she was too busy staring at him. He was a faerie wearing a glamour of a tall man with dark hair and dark clothes. The faerie underneath was similar to the glamour, except for the black-feathered wings sticking out of his back and the blood red eyes.

"It's me who should be sorry, now you're all wet," he said, helping her up.

"It's pouring down rain. I'm no wetter than I was before," she said, her tone emotionless. Normally she might have laughed at his comment, or made a funny one in return, but she just didn't have the heart to be comical right now.

"Where were you going so fast? And in the middle of the night no less?" he asked. His voice was gentle, though he had every reason to be angry. It was her fault after all.

"Not going, leaving," she corrected, not thinking about how that sounded until it was too late. She brushed her damp hair out of her face to make herself look less like a drowned animal.

"Leaving what?" the man asked now, seeming genuinely curious.

"Nevermind, I'm wasting your time," she said and turned to walk away.

"On the contrary, I have plenty of time to waste," he said, catching up to her.

"It's nothing important, really," she told him, smiling and trying to sound carefree. She wanted to get away, to keep running. She feared that the shadows from her mind would catch up to her.

"Will you at least let me buy you some coffee?" he asked. Jamie knew she shouldn't go with him. She didn't know him, and on top of that he was a faerie. She'd never talked to a faerie, though, glamour or not. In the end her curiosity beat her instinct to run.

"Fine," she said, looking around her for the first time. She knew the city well enough that she could find her way home no matter where she ended up running, but it always took her a minute to get her bearings.

"There's a little shop just around the corner," he said, leading the way.

"I'm Jamie, by the way," she said as they entered the warm little café. She hadn't noticed it when she ran past it before, but she recognized the place. It was frequented by faeries, though staffed by humans. She'd never known nor cared why.

"You can call me Danny," he told her as they slid into a booth. She noted that that didn't mean that was his real name. She did her best to smile at him and hide the pain that was creeping up on her. It wasn't hard. She did this every day. _It's simple,_ she told herself, _just fake that smile a little longer._ She never tried to get rid of her hurt, only hide it or run from it. She just had to keep the weight of the broken dreams from crushing her.

"We'll take two coffees, mine black," Danny said as the waitress came over.

"How do you take yours, hon?" the heavy-set woman asked of Jamie.

"Cream, but no sugar please," she replied. The woman disappeared into the kitchen, returned with the coffee, then left again. Jamie clutched her mug, letting the warmth seep into her numb fingers.

"I've got to ask, how old are you?" Danny wondered.

"Seventeen, I know I look younger," she replied, taking a sip of her coffee. She always hated how she looked so small and delicate and, well, weak. In fact she was very strong and a good fighter. She'd had to be.

"So what's a girl like you doing out on your own at midnight?" he asked.

"I was heading home from meeting one of my friends," she replied. It wasn't a very specific answer, but she figured he wouldn't care about her going to the club with Ben. She wasn't sure why he bothered to ask at all.

Danny's P.O.V.

He studied the girl before him curiously, wishing she'd tell him what was on her mind. As a dark fey, he could sense her emotions, and they weren't pretty. He couldn't feed off of them, not since Irial messed up the ink exchange with the girl Leslie. He doubted the new king would attempt something like that again. Plenty of people had had problems with Irial's way of running things, but not that part. Having a new king had placated them, but the same old doubts and accusations would pop up eventually.

Danny didn't care much for politics, though he called himself one of the Dark Court's fey. He did it more for convenience than anything else. He pushed thoughts of the court out of his mind and focused on Jamie. She was a strange one. She smiled like she was having the time of her life, but sorrow was building just under the surface. Most humans weren't this adept at hiding their emotions.

"So, did you have a fight with your friend?" he asked. No, that was too weak. One simply fight couldn't have caused this much turmoil. It had been growing for a long time, made only stronger by being stomped down often. He couldn't explain why he cared about the emotions of this human. She simply fascinated him.

The mask never slipped as she answered. "No, nothing like that, everything was fine," she said. Jamie looked off into space with a dreamy expression, as if remembering happy times. There was no happiness in her jumble of emotions, however. _She's very skilled, this one._

"I'm sorry if I seem nosy. It's just, you seemed rather upset when you bumped into me earlier, and I'm curious to know why," he said. He knew that humans could become very defensive if they felt someone was prying.

The emotions that flickered through her were a very strange combination. Confusion, concentration, anger, sorrow, worry, and then a slight discomfort, none of them lasting more than a few seconds. She seemed to be trying to think of a way to reply. "Well, let's just say I have some issues," she finally said, laughing without humor.

"Which would be?" he prompted.

"None of your business," she said quietly, but her tone wasn't angry, only sad. She stood up, the fake smile on her face giving way to a blank look. "Thanks for the coffee, but I've got to go," she said, laying a few bills on the table and heading out of the shop. Danny threw down a ten and followed her outside. The rain had stopped, and Jamie was walking away down the street, head down and hands in her pockets.

"Wait!" he called, "What were you running from earlier?"

She turned to look at him, her face unreadable. Even her emotions were level now. "Nothing I can get away from," she said, her tone of the kind you would use for reciting facts from a textbook.

The blonde girl walked on, not sparing him another glance, and he didn't pursue her. He got the feeling that there would be no more information out of her tonight. Danny let his glamour drop and melted into the shadows of an alley. He headed home, but his thoughts lingered on Jamie. She was different from any of the other human's he met. Her emotions were so chaotic, yet she had the strength to act normal. _What a little mystery you are._


End file.
